


hold me tight (or don't)

by wintervoice



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angry Sex, Enemies With Benefits, Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Fuckbuddies?, Hate Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Unresolved Emotional Tension, except they're not buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:53:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22425127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintervoice/pseuds/wintervoice
Summary: Kriffing Poe Dameron, who clearly has no respect for the Millenium Falcon, will never fly her again. Ben will crash her into a moon himself before he allows such a thing.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	hold me tight (or don't)

When Poe Dameron light speed skipped the Falcon halfway across the galaxy, he’d damaged the duralloy plates. The fuel pumps had caught fire and the deflector shield generator is still malfunctioning, and so Ben makes himself useful most days by slowly making repairs. 

It isn’t as if they trust him to do anything else. He knows that they are right not to, even if the war is over and the Force had wrenched itself free of his body with a sharp, ugly twist as his final step back toward the Light. The great pressure of power is no longer an overwhelming presence he can feel all the way down to his bones. Instead, it’s something that takes up residence in the furthest reaches of his mind: still there but mute and just far off enough to be out of grasp no matter how often he reaches out to tries to snatch it back. He tugs and tears at it, forehead creased in frustration when he holds out a hand to attempt to summon a wrench or wrinkles his nose to search the thoughts of another person to no avail. He’s been cut off and that is the only reason he’s allowed relative freedom among the new Resistance. 

They have morphed into a group of individuals determined to aid refugees and bring help to the planets in the Middle and Outer Rims. He provides what intel he can, hands out blankets and foodstuffs, sits in his mother’s cramped makeshift office and offers advice only when prompted to do so because his speaking up unwarranted tends to grate the nerves of every general and the handful of commanders desperately trying to find their place in a galaxy no longer at war. 

Funds are, unfortunately, in short supply, and he’s forced to salvage what he can from other destroyed ships. Most days, he wanders in search of parts, making slow, lopping circles around the base. He’s not allowed outside the perimeter and the guards stationed at various viewports are more than happy to remind him with the quick cocking of their blasters. He can no longer stop bolts mid-air, so he does little more than answer with a bow of his head when he skirts too close to the edge and they shout their warnings. 

So it’s _not_ freedom, really, and while the knowledge that he is still a prisoner chafes, nothing is so unfair as the fact that he is not allowed to fly. He feels anchored and suffocated, finding that the stillness of solid ground doesn’t suit him after so long aboard Star Destroyers. Starships, even large ones meant to mimic life on a habitable planet or moon, still have a gentle thrum of life and a rocking that he finds comforting. Being this close to the stars and unable to soar among them? That’s true torture. 

It’s easier if he’s shut up inside the confines of the Falcon with only Chewie for company, who isn’t intimated or cowed by the former Kylo Ren. In fact, he has a habit of ordering Ben about as if he is still a ten year old in need of direction, which is how Ben finds himself folded inside the maintenance hatch and glowering at a cluster of fried wires. More damage from lightspeed skipping.

Kriffing Poe Dameron, who clearly has no respect for the _Millenium Falcon_ , will never fly her again. Ben will crash her into a moon himself before he allows such a thing.

He twists until he’s on his back, tongue pressed into his cheek and feet pressed up against the groaning interior support braces, and has to stretch to reach the bolt that’s come loose. It’s a precarious angle that requires intense focus, so when he hears the loading dock whir open and then closed again, followed by footfalls that are far too light to be that of a Wookie, he doesn’t bother to look up. It’s likely just Leia, coming to remind him that he has to eat something today. He releases a soft, frustrated groan, attempting to slip between the levers and brackets, still turning the wrench when there’s a voice above his head. 

“You’re never going to find the right couplings.”

Ben freezes and drops the wrench. It clatters into the belly of the hold, far beyond where his large hands would be able to reach, and once again laments the loss the Force. Life had been simpler when he could sense who was approaching from miles away. 

He has simultaneously seen too much of Poe and not nearly enough, and that’s because Leia guards her golden boy like a smuggler and protects her hoard. It’s as admirable as it is funny, her penchant to protect them both since their first unsuccessful attempt at comradery had ended with both of them in the med bay. He can still hear the panic in Luietenent Konnix’s voice as she ran from the command center to fetch General Organa before they could kill each other properly. Poe had broken Ben’s nose, but Ben had turned Poe’s handsome jawline into a mess of purple and red veins and bruised a two ribs for good measure. They had both sat on cots with their heads hung in shame when she scolded them later, mumbling _yes, ma’am, it won't happen again, ma'am_ or _I know, Mother, I’m sorry_ until she was satisfied.

Afterward, they’d sat in uneasy silence, bacta working over wounds, and Ben had fought to root around a little more in his soul and find something that could hurt. It was easier than focusing his pain inward. 

“Still think you can save me?” He’d asked, pressing a bandage to his bleeding nose, a bitter echo of Poe’s promise from long ago to never give up on him.

Not to be cowed or intimated, Poe met his gaze. “I don’t think you can be saved.”

Leia enforces a twenty-foot radius between her son and the commander now, save for moments in which Poe seems determined to push his own luck and Ben, for better or worse, is the unstoppable force to his immovable object. 

He drags his eyes away from the wrench and casts a sharp glance upward. “Wouldn’t need new couplings if you bothered to remember that the Falcon requires a gentle touch,” he huffs, pulling himself up and swinging his legs out of the hatch. He stands and grabs a rag to wipe at the thin layer of grime across his finger pads. “Or maybe you’ve forgotten everything Han taught us.”

“I remember everything your dad said,” Poe rocks back on his heels, thoroughly satisfied, and offers a tick of his brow. He is not someone easily conquered, so there is no head bowed in submission. He is not someone under siege, even if the walls of his resistance are chipped away by flames of dead memories. Instead, he has the air and authority of his station. His chin is angled and his shoulders are straight, his body confident and sure. Whatever doubts and uncertainties he carries, he has frosted them over with angry stubbornness. “I also remember that you killed him.”

It’s intended to be an attack. Ben knows this, knows Poe is attempting to goad him. He feels his fingers curl into tight fists anyway and he is tempted, once again, to reach out to that numb, familiar place in the back of his mind and use the Force to throw Commander Dameron through a wall. 

Han is still a canyon sized hole in his chest. Ben can taste the bitter tang of immediate regret in his mouth and the cold stirring of guilt in his middle. The weight of it compresses his lungs and makes it difficult to breathe. He might have screamed in rage and lunged, but he’s trying to be good for his mother’s sake, so he finishes cleaning his hands and tosses the rag into the pile of tools near the opening of the hatch. He forces the ache of the grief of his own doing back down into the pit of his stomach where it belongs because otherwise, it’s too much to bear. 

“Why are you here?” His gaze is almost clinical in his put upon detachment, watching Poe as if he were no more than a fly buzzing about the room. “I have things to do.”

“Really? Got a busy day ahead of you, your highness?” he taunts, and there’s a pang at the remembrance of when that had once been a title used to tease before a stolen kiss rather than goad him into a quarrel. 

“Too busy to let you drag me to a bunk, yes,” he lobs back with surprising ease. He can’t help the slow crawl of a cruel smile. It hooks into the corners of his mouth, threatening to puncture some vital organ and let blood seep in where it didn’t belong. “So either get on with it or get off my ship.”

Ben takes a respectable step backward as soon as the words leave his mouth, giving him space, but it seems he’s still too close for Poe’s liking because he’s looking at him like he’s a nasty thing found on the sole of his boot. He doesn’t need the Force to feel the frustration seeping off of Poe in violent waves. He can’t even let him have denial, but Poe is a fool if he expects even that small mercy. 

And perhaps that’s why it feels as if he’s wheedled under his skin. Ben doesn’t know what to do with people who don’t exist inside of the neat little categories assigned to them. He remembers a little boy determined to always be the best at everything and a young man that believed so firmly in the idea of good that he had been willing to go to war to fight for it, but now there is a cold ferocity beneath the gloss of poster boy for the Resistance. It’s in the way he looks at Ben now that leaves him wondering if he’s capable of cold-blooded murder. 

Well, not entirely cold-blooded. Still, he doesn’t quite know what else to name the dark look Poe levels at him. It isn't saintly, but it is certainly righteous. 

“That’s what I thought. Excuse me,” Ben gives a little extravagant bow, knowing it’ll only irritate him further. Poe’s irritated by everything he does, whether he’s chewing his food too loudly or sitting in the war room and drumming his fingers on a table or attempting to breeze past him toward the loading dock. 

There isn’t quite enough room, so his arm brushes against his shoulder and Poe catches him by the elbow. His gaze is murderous.

Like a prisoner marching to the gallows, Poe takes a small step forward. Another step and Ben can make out the small nicks on his chin, hidden away under the dark scruff, and there’s that old, half-moon indentation on his cheek from when he’d fallen out of one of the trees on Yavin IV after Ben had sworn he wasn’t brave enough to try to climb all the way to the very top. They’d been only ten and eight at the time, and even then everything was about trying to outdo each other. 

He can pretend all he likes, but Ben can see the way war has changed Poe just as much as it has changed him. The violence of it has hardened his bones. He can see it in the way they press up against his skin when he shoves and Ben is suddenly against the wall. 

This close, Ben can see the whirl of thoughts in his dark eyes, watch him slowly sort through the scenarios as he attempts to find a way to put a stop to what they’re about to do - what they’ve done half a dozen times now since Ben has come home. Ben is made up of equations, facts, and figures, and he has the measure of Poe whether he likes it not, so he knows to angle his chin so that their lips can crash together. 

It’s not a kiss doomed with the fatalism of young love. This is all teeth and tongue, and they are two strange bodies buzzing with the echo of the same bitter symphony. Poe’s hands come up, trying to gain purchase, and tangle in his hair. There’s a flash of deja vu in the way he sighs when Ben instinctively wraps his arms around his waist to tug him closer. It’s almost an act of violence when they’re kissing like this, with Poe leaving stubble burns and thin, red lines in the shape of his teeth over his chin, his neck, his chest when he tears at the collar of Ben’s shirt. He turns Ben’s skin into an atlas to map his trajectory and something about that feels more personal than it should. 

_It’s just bodies touching_ , he tells himself and slips his tongue into Poe’s mouth. Ben feels hot and cold all at once. He shivers closer, desire unraveling within his middle, straining against him in want.

His chest is hard, where it presses flush against his own, and the roots of his hair groan in protest when Poe gives another pull. His other hand comes up to press into the tender point where neck meets shoulder. Ben winces, legs buckling, but obliges easily. 

“Always used to getting your way,” he comments off-hand, another dig at Ben's princely sensibilities, even though Ben is the one on his knees. 

“Yes,” Ben hisses, and he would say more but - _I don’t think you can be saved_. It echoes in his mind and it needles at a deep, tender part of Ben that he can’t stand. It makes him feel sick knowing that he is unworthy of Poe, that Poe knows Ben is unworthy, and he thinks he’ll happily drag him down into the slog of darkness if it means he can keep moments such as these.

His face feels too hot, his body overheated, even when his fingers are fumbling to work Poe’s trousers down over his waist. He shoves both pants and briefs down to his ankles. He’s surprisingly gentle when he nuzzles into the tender space just before the sharp bone of his hip, but he's also not one for teasing. Not when Poe’s cock is right there and he has to get his mouth on it. 

Ben watches Poe’s lips go slack when he licks up the shaft. He hears him groan an explicative when his mouth closes over the head and he takes him properly into his mouth. It gives Ben great gratification to watch Poe lose control in this way because he can touch Poe but he can’t _touch_ Poe, not in the way he once had. Ben can remember adolescent curiosity and how they’d learned this course together once, both of them young and green, and remembers knowing that the curse of his bloodline would claim another victim before he had a chance to truly decide what he wanted. He remembers when everything had been tinted with the rosy stain of love, long ago. He remembers pouring all that he had into Poe, his love and his life and even his death, on that last fateful night they’d been together and Ben had felt the sinister claws of the darkness sink into his skin. 

He stops just long enough to undo the buttons on his pants. Ben shoves his other hand down his own trousers, wrapping his fingers around the length of his cock, and presses his thumb to the slit at the top, already beading with sticky pre-come. It takes a little forethought and focus, but he manages to find a rhythm between his ministrations with his mouth and palming his own erection. 

Poe clutches at him, nails biting into his shoulders, and arches upward. Everything is quiet, pressed in close, save for the sounds of Ben’s mouth and Poe’s desperate panting. He’s trying to stay quiet so as not to give Ben the satisfaction and that just won’t do. He can feel the muscles in his stomach and thighs jumping and coiling. Ben pushes himself further down, lips stretching a little thinner around him as he continues to curl the other hand around his own cock. 

“Ben,” he whispers, and it’s like a death sentence above him. 

He drags him further in, seeking more to take into his mouth, more of him, just...more. It has been so long since he’s been touched like he was something worthy of desire. He’s been starved and made to fast, and he only feels truly fed when the warm liquid of desire makes Poe’s body languid. Ben takes a moment to steady himself, swirling his tongue, and then he hums and Poe makes a gurgling sound and shivers all over when he comes.

“Ben,” he moans again, pushing against his shoulder when the sensations become too much, and it’s the final nail in the coffin. Ben swallows and finishes in his hand, sticky mess smearing across his palm and his black trousers. He rocks forward, forehead against Poe’s bare thigh, and tries to quell a hiss. 

Poe’s hands move upward until he can feel his fingers in his hair again, winding into the strands with a sort of purpose that makes something heavy sit against his chest. He knuckles away the come that dribbles down his chin while Poe’s thumb sweeps down just enough to brush across the high point of his cheekbone.

Ben jumps and skitters away from the almost tender motion. It feels too much like leaving an imprint - dirty and grubby fingers on his skin and a mark on his soul. Poe still wishes to drag out the pieces of him that he wants, gathering the good parts of Ben up like a prize, not realizing the dark side has leeched him of the good the way a landscape is leached of color in the dead of winter. He is tremulous and muted now. Not the type of person capable of receiving tenderness, let alone love.

And he hates Poe. Hates him more than he has ever hated anyone before, judging from the acid that burns at the back of his throat. Hates that he’s the one to make him feel like he should want something like tenderness again. 

When he doesn’t feel _anything_. 

Ben’s eyes squeeze shut, almost as if he could squeeze this moment out of his memory, but it is still real when his eyes open again. He rises to his feet, knees sore, and tries to collect himself by brushing off his pants, rebuttoning them, straightening his shirt. He feels disgusting. He needs a shower and a change of clothes, but he’s more desperate for the comfort of emotional distance.

Poe, who has the lightning-fast reflexes to catch his mood swinging from dark to black, does the same. By the time Ben crosses the space to the loading dock and presses the button that sends the blast door hissing open, Poe is already stalking toward the exit. 

“See you next week,” he says for good measure, teeth clenched over in anger. He's not one to pass up a chance to gloat over a victory.

Poe, for once in his life, says nothing, lips pressing into a thin line of displeasure as he clamors out of the _Falcon_. 

He closes the blast door then, shutting him out, and something within deep Ben's chest burns with suffering because Poe does not look back. 


End file.
